American history

Civil War Kansas Soldiers’ Home

/ sandramervillehart / 2 Comments

Both individuals and organizations became concerned over the needs of disabled and elderly Civil War veterans in the years following the war. One in Connecticut, Fitch’s Home for Soldiers and Their Orphans, opened in 1864—before the war ended.

A soldiers’ home in Georgetown, Kentucky, was the first Confederate home that opened. A few states operated separate homes for Union and Confederate soldiers. No federal funds were given to Confederate veterans.

At least one facility, Kansas Soldiers’ Home in Fort Dodge, welcomed both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Fort Dodge, built in 1865, was about 5 miles from Dodge City. It was a fort before becoming the Kansas State Soldiers’ Home that opened in 1890. The home used many of the old buildings.

Times were rocky in those early years for veterans. Quarreling and drunkenness got some folks dismissed. The home had to collect and remove croquet sets when some residents used mallets during quarrels.

July 4, 1890 proved to be a special celebration at the home. Dodge City citizens visited the event recognizing both Union and Confederate veterans.

Soldiers who had fought in the Mexican War and Indian battles lived in the home and, later, black veterans were also welcomed.

Visitors are invited to tour several buildings at Fort Dodge Soldiers Home.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Fort Dodge,” Kansastravel.org, 2017/07/07 http://www.kansastravel.org/fortdodge.htm.

“Kansas Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Soldiers%27_Home.

“Old Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_soldiers%27_home.

 

Civil War Federal Soldiers’ Homes

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The first U.S. home for disabled veterans and orphans of soldiers was founded by Benjamin Fitch of Darien, Connecticut. He paid for almost all the expenses of the home built while the Civil War still raged in 1864. The facility was renamed “Fitch’s Home for Soldiers” when control was handed over the state in 1887.

The U.S. government bought the Togus Springs Hotel in 1866. The Maine hotel became the Eastern Branch of the National Asylum For Disabled Volunteer Veterans. Read more about this home here.

A building was erected in Minneapolis to provide a soldiers’ home in 1888. One cottage for women and five cottages for men were on the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home property near Minnehaha Falls by 1911.

The beautiful Minnesota land was meant to be a peaceful place. Soldiers didn’t receive medical care at the facility. World War I changed that policy, but didn’t make it a priority.

Colonel George Washington Steele introduced legislation in 1888. He hoped to establish a national home in Grant County, Indiana. Despite Steele’s worry that it wouldn’t pass, Congress approved it that year. Indiana citizens in Marion celebrated the passing of the bill on July 30, 1888, the city’s largest crowd ever.

The National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Marion Branch, opened in 1890. The facility, also known as Marion National Home, enrolled 586 veterans that year. They built a hospital to treat patients there, hiring Cincinnati female nurses as part of the staff.

The facility grew beyond capacity with veterans sleeping on the floor in 1892. New buildings were erected. The need heightened with World War I veterans and about 60 new structures had been added by 1919. Among these were additional living quarters, warehouses, supply buildings, greenhouses, a fire station, and memorials.

White veterans and United States Colored Troops were welcomed into the homes.

Federal soldiers’ homes did not allow Confederate veterans.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“A Home for Volunteers: Togus and the National Soldiers’ Homes,” The Gettysburg Compiler, 2017/07/04 https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/05/29/a-home-for-volunteers-togus-and-the-national-soldiers-homes/.

“History of Darien, Connecticut,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Darien,_Connecticut.

“Minnesota Veterans Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Veterans_Home.

“National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Marion Branch,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Home_for_Disabled_Volunteer_Soldiers,_Marion_Branch.

“Togus, Maine,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togus,_Maine.

 

Civil War Federal Soldiers’ Home at Togus, Maine

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The U.S. government bought the Togus Springs Hotel in 1866. The Maine hotel became the Eastern Branch of the National Asylum For Disabled Volunteer Veterans.

The hotel already had a bathing house, large pool, bowling alley, race track, and a stable. New barracks, a chapel, and a hospital were being erected for the 200 veterans living there by the middle of 1867 with three dormitories and recreation building following in 1868.

When the asylum opened, only Union soldiers able to prove that their injury was connected with their service were allowed to stay. Then War of 1812 and Mexican War veterans were accepted if they didn’t fight for the Confederacy. The facility never opened its doors to Confederate soldiers.

Togus residents wore blue army uniforms available from a surplus. It operated much like the military with military discipline and guardhouse confinements. The veteran’s entire pension was signed over to the home in payment for their care.

The National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers constructed a bakery, brickyard, fire station, carpentry shop, sawmill, butcher shop, boot and shoe factory, blacksmith shop, soap works, store, library, harness shop, and an opera house theater. Residents earned money by working at the farm or shops if physically able.

The highest number of veterans living there was about 2,800 in 1904.

Civilians enjoyed the recreations at Togus. Large crowds flocked for military band concerts, baseball games, performances at the opera house, and even a zoo.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“A Home for Volunteers: Togus and the National Soldiers’ Homes,” The Gettysburg Compiler, 2017/07/04 https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2017/05/29/a-home-for-volunteers-togus-and-the-national-soldiers-homes/.

“Togus, Maine,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togus,_Maine.

 

Civil War Confederate Soldiers’ Homes

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Soldiers’ Homes were established for Civil War veterans who could no longer care for themselves. A few states provided separate homes for Union and Confederate veterans. The federal government didn’t provide funds for the Confederate soldiers. This obligation fell on the states.

Confederate veteran Jefferson Manly Falkner founded what became known as the Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home in 1901. Falkner wanted to provide a home for veterans and their wives. Widows were allowed to live there after 1915.

Falkner donated 80 acres in the summer resort area of Mountain Creek where between 650 to 800 people found a home. The home’s last veteran died in 1934. Five widows remained until October of 1939 when the home closed.

Atlanta’s Confederate Soldiers’ Home, built in 1890, was also known as the Old Soldiers’ Home. Henry W. Grady raised funds for the home at 410 East Confederate Avenue through subscriptions until it finally opened in 1900. Fire destroyed the building in 1901, but it was rebuilt on the same location a year later. The home’s last veteran died in 1941.

The old Kentucky Confederate Home was the former Villa Ridge Inn just outside the Pewee Valley Confederate Cemetery. There was a hospital, entertainment, and religious services. There was housing for 350 veterans and a total of 700 former Confederate soldiers eventually called it home.

There were a few prerequisites to living at the Kentucky home. Besides being a former Confederate soldier, residents had to be mentally stable, a resident of the state for at least 6 months, and not an alcoholic.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

“Alabama Confederate Soldiers Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Confederate_Soldiers_Home.

“Confederate Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Soldiers%27_Home.

“Old Soldiers’ Home,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_soldiers%27_home.

“Peewee Valley Confederate Cemetery,” Wikipedia, 2017/07/04 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewee_Valley_Confederate_Cemetery.

 

Civil War Southern General Hospitals

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Around 1,000 Southern women nursed ill or wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, most of them working in their own towns and neighborhoods.

These resourceful women started wayside hospitals near railroad depots to care for ailing or wounding soldiers. The Confederacy soon took over all military hospitals.

Seeing the benefit of women serving in hospitals, the Confederacy passed laws to designate women in positions at military hospitals.

Two matrons were given oversight of the hospital’s food and medicine, each woman earning $40/month. Two assistant matrons laundered patients’ bedding and clothing for $35/month. Two ward matrons served each ward by feeding, administering medications, and bathing patients. Earning $30/month, ward matrons also assisted in letter writing. Nurses received $25/month.

There were 13 general hospitals in North Carolina by war’s end. Fairgrounds Hospital in Raleigh was the first general hospital established in the state, but it later became known as General Hospital #7, with a total of 3 in Raleigh.

Other cities/towns with general hospitals were Kittrell Springs, Fayetteville, Salisbury, Greensboro, Charlotte, Wilmington, Goldsboro, and Wilson.

Pettigrew Hospital (General Hospital #13) in Raleigh was specifically built as a hospital, the only one in North Carolina with this distinction. It had 400 beds, a bathhouse, guardhouse, dispensary, laundry, and stable.

Pastors often announced when several cars of wounded were expected at churches and then gave the congregation an intermission so that those who wanted to leave and prepare food for the soldiers could do so.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Downey, Tom. “Wayside Hospitals,” South Carolina Encyclopedia, 2017/07/04 http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/wayside-hospitals/.

“North Carolina Nursing History,” Appalachian State University, 2017/07/04, https://nursinghistory.appstate.edu/civil-war-and-reconstruction-1861-1876.

 

Mulled Buttermilk

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“Excellent for convalescing patients” was the way a recipe in an 1877 cookbook described mulled buttermilk.

Given the date of the cookbook, wounded soldiers during Civil War probably received this drink in hospitals. As a historical novelist, I’m always interested in learning tidbits from our history. It’s fun to add authentic details such as this one when a story requires it.

Boil a cup of buttermilk over a medium high heat. The consistency of the milk completely changes. The thick, creamy liquid thins to a grainy consistency of water.

Beat one egg yolk. Temper the yolk by stirring in a couple of tablespoons of the hot buttermilk. Add the tempered yolk to the boiling buttermilk. Stir and allow the mixture to return to a boil. I stirred the mixture while cooking.

Pour into a glass and drink. I allowed it to cool slightly before trying it. One sip was enough. I did not like this.

There is a second recipe for mulled buttermilk.

Forgetting the egg yolk, put a heaping tablespoon of flour into a glass. Pour in 1/3 cup of cold buttermilk and stir well. If this is not enough liquid for the flour to assimilate into the liquid after a brisk stir, add more buttermilk—a tablespoon at a time—until it is combined into a thick,  pourable liquid. Set this aside.

When the cup of buttermilk initially boils, add the buttermilk thickening to the saucepan. Return to a boil, cooking an additional minute to make sure the flour is done.

I really liked this second alternative. The thicker beverage tasted better to me.

And it is good for patients. If you lived one hundred fifty years ago, you would have drunk mulled buttermilk when you were sick.

Good luck! I’d love to hear if you try this recipe.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

Civil War Refreshment Saloons

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Barzilai Brown, a grocer at the corner of Washington Avenue and Swanson Street in South Philadelphia, had a heart for weary Union soldiers marching past his store in the spring of 1861. He saw a lot of them from his location near the Navy Yard at the waterfront and also departing for the South on the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad.

Brown decided to do something. He gave food to traveling soldiers. His generosity grew and on May 27, 1861, the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon was established to distribute drinks, food, paper, and stamps. Seeing a need to not only feed troops, the saloon added a hospital to its services in September, 1861.

Another saloon also established in 1861, Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, was located at 1009 Otsego Street near the railroad.

These volunteer establishments provided soldiers far from their loved ones with comforts of home: washing facilities, meals, writing materials, sleeping areas, directions, information on places of interest, army contacts, and hospital care. Dining halls contained long tables and dining bars where soldiers stood to eat.

Troops passed through Philadelphia at all hours of the day and night. “Fort Brown,” a cannon outside the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, fired a signal shot to call women volunteers living near the Navy Yard to the saloon when regiments were expected.

Most of these ladies, though responsible for their households, came to the refreshment saloons to cook meals and wash dishes. They worked long hours—often all night—to feed soldiers, sailors, freedmen, and refugees.

The Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon fed 400,000 men and cared for about 7,500 patients. Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon served 1,025,000 meals to over 800,000 men with nearly 15,000 hospital patients. All this was paid for with donations—no government funds.

To think that one man started all this by doing what he could to meet the needs of exhausted troops. They were hungry—he had food in his grocery store.

Barzilai Brown sought to feed heroes … and became one himself.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Brockett, L.P. MD and Vaughan, Mary C. Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience, Zeigler, McCurdy & Co., 1867.

“Civil War Volunteer Refreshment Saloons,” The Library Company of Philadelphia, 2017/07/03 http://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3ACVVRS?display=list.

“Samuel B. Fales collection of Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon papers,” The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2017/07/03  http://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/findingaid1580fales.pdf.

 

Civil War Camp Letterman: Caring for Gettyburg’s Wounded

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Railroad cut, Gettysburg battle, July 1, 1863

Medical Director Jonathan Letterman shipped tents, supplies, and provisions to Adams County—where Gettysburg resides—on the evening of July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. He ordered that a general hospital be established there on July 5th. Confederate and Union wounded would be provided transportation to the hospital for treatment.

The army erected tents on George Wolf’s farm on York pike approximately one and a half miles east of Gettysburg. Railroad tracks adjacent to the property made it easy to deliver supplies and transport patients to Washington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

Surgeons, nurses, supply clerks, quartermasters, and cooks staffed the general hospital, known as Camp Letterman, when it was ready in mid-July. Infantry guarded Confederate patients and supplies.

Almost forty folding cots each with mattresses and linens fit in rows of tents. Camp Letterman held five hundred white tents with only ground as the floor. Trains brought supplies to warehouse tents set up near the railroad. A large cookhouse in the middle of camp gave cooks a place to prepare nutritious meals such as soup and bread.

Wounded from both sides arrived at camp in ambulances where they were assigned beds. The hospital camp was filled by late July. It housed over 1,600 wounded soldiers. Hundreds more continued to receive medical care in temporary hospitals in Gettysburg.

A morgue and cemetery near camp were established by the army. An army chaplain gave them a Christian burial.

Yet most of Camp Letterman’s patients survived. Surgeons worked around the clock while treating the seriously wounded. When patients recovered enough to travel to city hospitals, Sanitary Commission workers assisted the army in transporting them to the railroad depot. They waited a long time for the single Gettysburg railroad line.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Sheldon, George. When the Smoke Cleared at Gettysburg: The Tragic Aftermath of the Bloodiest Battle of the Civil War, Cumberland House, 2003.

 

Buttermilk Stew

/ sandramervillehart

A recipe in an 1877 cookbook for Buttermilk Stew was included in a section titled “Food for the Sick.”

Research involves a lot of reading for historical novelists, but I don’t remember reading about this type of stew. Civil War nurses and cooks likely fed it to wounded soldiers. I love learning about our history. It’s fun to add authentic details like this when a story requires it.

Boil one pint of buttermilk over a medium high heat. I allowed it to boil less than a minute before removing from the heat. The consistency of the milk completely changed. The thick, creamy liquid thinned to a grainy consistency of water.

A “small lump of butter” called for in the original recipe became a tablespoon of butter to this modern cook.

When that melted, I added 2 tablespoons of sugar—a complete guess as the recipe said to “sweeten to taste.” I added more because adding ginger was an option. Ginger has such a strong flavor.

I added ¼ teaspoon ground ginger. Cooks may substitute honey for sugar.

The consistency remained like water as it cooled. It had a very strange flavor. It tasted like buttermilk though different. The sugar overpowered the ginger, so I’d suggest decreasing it to only a tablespoon. Ginger is optional.

After only a couple of sips, I pushed it aside. It wasn’t terrible. I can understand that thinning out the buttermilk made it easier for ailing patients to digest.

Good luck! I’d love to hear if you try this recipe.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

Citizens of Gettysburg in the Aftermath

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Confederate cannons at North Carolina Memorial, Gettysburg Battlefield

“We do not know until tried what we are capable of.” Sarah Broadhead, Gettysburg citizen, wrote this on July 7, 1863—just four days after the battle ended.

An undated article in Adams County Sentinel reported that the town was one vast hospital. Wounded soldiers filled churches, colleges, the seminary, the courthouse, and many homes. Houses and barns outside of town were filled with thousands of Rebels, left behind when their army retreated. Citizens were doing everything in their power for them.

The Sanitary Commission took over the Fahnestock store, a one-hundred-foot long building in the center of town. They filled it with provisions and clothing, which were distributed to soldiers in the hospitals. Sarah Broadhead praised the work of both the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission. Private contributions enabled both organizations to provide generously for the injured men.

Nellie Auginbaugh remembered the Union and Confederate sympathizers who came to town. They couldn’t visit hospitals until taking the oath of allegiance. Some resented the requirement and refused, but others took the oath.

According to Mary Cunningham Bigham, someone at her father’s farm on Emmitsburg Road baked bread to feed the soldiers every day for six weeks. Every soldier able to walk stood in line for the bread hot from a brick oven. The family used all of their 25 barrels of flour stored in the barn.

Visitors came to town to search for loved ones, help the wounded, or to satisfy their curiosity. Sarah Broadhead’s home stayed full and she had to turn people away. One man felt grateful to have a chair to sit on in front of a hotel.

There were no church services while the wounded soldiers occupied the churches. On July 12th, Sarah Broadhead didn’t even feel like she had a Sunday. Not only were there no services, but trains also continued to run and confusion reigned.

The battle had affected the whole town.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Slade, Jim & Alexander, John. Firestorm at Gettysburg, Schiffer Military/Aviation History, 1998.

Sandra’s newest Civil War romance novel, A Rebel in My House, is set during the Battle of Gettysburg. It shows what the townspeople endured through the eyes of a Gettysburg seamstress and a Tennessee soldier (Heth’s Division, Archer’s Brigade, 7th Tennessee) left behind in the retreat.